23: Yuri Milner

STAGE OF GLOBAL CONQUEST: The Russian venture capitalist has bought his way into the hottest, fastest-growing Web companies—Facebook, Zynga, Groupon, Twitter—at prices more established investors have balked at. Now many of those companies are going public at much higher valuations, vindicating his strategy.

BIG IMPORTANT FRIEND: Alisher Usmanov. Russia’s fifth-richest man is D.S.T.’s primary backer. Usmanov has deep ties to the Kremlin and did jail time for fraud and embezzlement in Uzbekistan, before being exonerated and fully pardoned.

FAMILY RELATIONS: Father Boris is a well-known business academic who specializes in American management principles.

MAN-OF-THE-PEOPLE MOVE: Milner and Ron Conway have handed out $150,000 loans to all of last spring’s graduates of Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley finishing school for start-ups.

The Russian paid $100 million for a chateau-style house in Silicon Valley.